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"speaker_name": "Hon. (Dr.) Simiyu",
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"content": "Hon. Deputy Speaker, it was very difficult to go ahead and propose those amendments to the Constitution because some of them would have taken a very long time and we would not have made the deadline for the 2017 elections. It might appear that we disappointed some people especially the Judiciary who wanted the period of the presidential election petition prolonged to 30 days but our hands were tied because of the timelines involved in amending the Constitution given the period left to the life of this Parliament before we break for the next general elections. We need to be alive to certain legal pitfalls that we, as the Joint Houses, face at the moment as we debate this Report and eventually the Bills that emanated from this Report in the sense that the Committee was equally balanced between the National Assembly and the Senate. So, if there is any disagreement between the two Houses as we debate these matters, we will need to set up another mediation team which will again have to involve both the Senate and the National Assembly. It is a legal pitfall but we will have to come up with mechanisms of circumventing it. Hon. Deputy Speaker, on the issue of Commissioners, after listening to all the stakeholders and looking at the timelines involved, Article 251of the Constitution and the Commissioners accepting that they were willing to step aside or leave office once a properly negotiated settlement was reached we came up with no findings on the allegations that were leveled against them. This was done so that we could move the process forward instead of being stuck at one place."
}